A chat between Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the SIGGRAPH 2024 conference in Colorado on Monday took an unexpected turn.
The conversation started out as standard — Huang spoke positively about the power of Nvidia GPUs and Zuckerberg talked about the future of AI chatbots — but ended with Huang and Zuckerberg exchanging custom jackets, a conversation reminiscent of a meme that went viral earlier this year.
“It’s black and leather and shearling,” Zuckerberg said of the coat he brought for Huang. “It’s got vibe. Buy this guy a chain.”
Image credit: Nvidia
Huang gifted Zuckerberg a new leather jacket that his wife, Lori, bought him for this year’s SIGGRAPH, which he had been wearing for the past two hours.
“It becomes more valuable because it’s being used,” Zuckerberg said.
Among the unexpected highlights of the hour-long exchange were references to cows on Zuckerberg’s Hawaiian ranch, a flurry of F-words and Zuckerberg’s style overhaul (which Zuckerberg described as “early stages”), and Huang didn’t shy away from disparaging Zuckerberg, a perk perhaps due to Meta’s reliance on Nvidia for its model-training hardware.
“He needs an AI that doesn’t judge,” Huang said.
At one point, Huang recounted an anecdote about how Zuckerberg cuts tomatoes: While they were making cheesesteak sandwiches together at Huang’s house, Zuckerberg was tasked with cutting the tomatoes, Huang said.
“So Mark, I handed him the knife,” Huang said, “and he cut up the tomatoes. Every single one of them was perfectly sliced, to the exact millimeter. But what was really interesting was, I thought the tomatoes were all sliced up and stacked like a deck of cards. But I turned around and he said he needed another plate. And the reason was, none of the tomatoes that he cut were touching each other. Once he separates one tomato from the other, they should never touch again.”
Huang playfully scolded Zuckerberg when he asked for a second cheesesteak at a dinner party: “Jensen, make me another cheesesteak,” Zuckerberg replied.
But the interview ended on a more complimentary note, with Huang complimenting Zuckerberg on his physique.
“I think Mark is pretty muscular,” he said. “Look, he’s pretty muscular.”
Zuckerberg put his arm around Jensen’s shoulders and returned the compliment. “You too.”
